She had work to do today. The first order of business was to do some checking on Jase Bridges, find out a little information on the reporter. Just who was he? Certainly far more than the hell-raiser she remembered from her youth. Letting St. Ives climb onto the bookcase, Brianna located her laptop, dropped onto a corner of the couch, and plugged in. Just as she settled in, her cell phone dinged, letting her know that she’d missed a call. She snatched it and saw that she’d actually missed two: one from Tanisha and another from Milo Tillman. “Not now,” she said aloud. One thing at a time.

Although she told herself that she was checking out Jase Bridges to screen him for Selma, she had to admit that she found him more than a little fascinating. Sure, she’d like his help in finding the missing Denning girls. But there was more to her interest, a spark that had ignited when she was little more than a girl, a spark that, she sensed, could flare if she let it. She toyed with the idea. Her love life had been dismal since Max. What would it hurt?

“Don’t go there,” she warned herself. Getting involved with a man right now was a distraction she didn’t need. More than that. Getting involved with Jase Bridges would be a mistake. A big mistake. At least until Selma’s daughters were located.

But she did need to know more about him, especially if she agreed to work with him. “Forewarned is forearmed,” she reminded herself, remembering one of her mother’s favorite phrases.

He’d worked for several newspapers, including the Savannah Sentinel, before landing at the Observer. Nowhere did it mention that he’d ever been married, which corroborated what he’d told her. Not that it mattered, she told herself. And yet, she couldn’t help feel a small sensation of satisfaction.

“You’re hopeless,” she said aloud, then looked up to find St. Ives sitting on a shelf, flicking his ringed tail and staring at her as if he agreed.

“Son of a bitch!” Jase whispered under his breath as he glowered at the computer screen. His oath seemed to go unnoticed in the newsroom, where a steady hum of typing, conversation, philosophizing, and joking was the norm. Fluorescent lights suspended from the high ceiling of this converted warehouse offered a fake illumination that vied with the natural light pouring through a bank of massive windows facing the street. Centuries-old brick walls contrasted with the rows of sleek monitors and computers that processed the online version of the Observer.

“Trouble?” Meri-Jo Williams asked from her desk barely six feet from his. Meri-Jo, always competitive and all of twenty-three, considered herself a dyed-in-the-wool journalist, fighting sexism to find her niche in the hardscrabble world of news. All bullshit.

“Nothing,” Jase said.